Sickness
by jrob
Summary: We interview one woman who help with a renegade groups trying to establish safety through armament. She tells us of the most unusual person who ever asked for their help. - apologize for the consistent underlining, I don't know what happened.


_I'm a sort of gun for hire type of person. People come to me and my partner when they need things done in a quick fashion and they need those things dead. Most of the time its food runs, medicine, clearing out an infested house so people can get their family heirlooms, but some times it becomes "odd" jobs. The government started to sponsor the lowly highway man soon after they started to reconstruct, saying it was giving social responsibility back to the people of the country._

_**What about the fee?**_

_Well, for most, those who don't have anything, we'd take a hot meal, a warm bath, roof over your head and a down blanket, others - well, lets just say those who can afford it, we take them for what they are worth. My partner and I have been doing this for some time, during the whole outbreak we'd come in and teach people how to take care of themselves, use weapons, stave off the rising number of hostiles. We made sure they could survive the best they could with what they had and if they had nothing we got them something. Late at night we'd tell them about the rest of the world, the news we'd heard, the loss of hope in some of those eyes was a given but the mere fact that we were there, man you could see a little glimmer of persistence in them. We'd made it this far, so could they. _

_**How did you become involved in this profession? I mean, how did you?**_

_I lived in this town that became crazed after the Panic. I'd known my partner and he'd managed to get out before things really hit the fan, so to speak. There was one man who though he had the means and the right to take over and use anyone he deemed fit for bait, so he could make the necessary movements outside town. You'd think if they were getting food and supplies for everyone, one person every month or so would be ethical, one benefiting the whole, but no, he was getting everything for himself and all his men. I was this, well, this thorn in his side. I'd steal from his shipments and lure his own men to being decoys for my own trips to certain places. I really pissed this guy off and when he found out who I was, my name, he hunted me down._

_Turned the town into more of a hell on earth and he was the devil. He let loose infected on innocent people, put putrid bodies in our water supply, made sure we all knew what I did was wrong. I didn't believe it though. I'd seen him shitting on these people for so long that I wasn't going to let him anymore. Thanks to - __**she shifts in her seat and runs a hand over her eyes**__ - to my partner I knew basic combat and weaponry, and even more thanks to him I didn't get beat up too bad before he came in and rescued me. We have this connection, he and I, he felt like I was in trouble, and I was, and he came and helped me and the people out._

_Marital law is a funny thing, you know? When someone if killed there isn't any real punishment for it, unless the people punish you. He was kept alive so he could feel what he had done to so many, and then when he turned - he was put down. It lasted a couple days and the people felt -_

_**Rectified **_

_Mended. They took over as a sort of democracy and the last I heard they were one of the blue zones. Held in for the duration and held on strong._

_Well, I got outta there and joined forces with him, it was the smarter thing to do. I felt this need to try to help anyone I could with what knowledge I possessed. I trained more and was able to outrun, out swim, and kill any Zed that came my way. We picked up some others along the way and soon our crew was something like six or seven. We'd bootleg computers and any kind of information that we could use to get in touch with anyone…wave radios, satellites, anything. We traveled and did jobs for food, supplies and money - if they had it._

_**You spoke of "odd" jobs? What would that comprise of?**_

_**She laughs, and pulls out a bottle of what looks to be lotion. Smells it and pours some in her hand, rubbing it between her hands.**_

_All sorts of things, really. Someone wants to trek out to the middle of a nest and see what all the hubbub is about, woman wants to scuba dive to the bottom to study their habits and underwater patterns, and - well, there was this one guy, real popular guy - had one sick mind._

_**Can you elaborate? **_

_Got this call one day, from some higher ups that said they needed an armed female for some small job. When the higher ups call it someone on the important list who can afford anything, so I contacted the guy and get this woman who tells me to venture to south California, where there is this hotel that has managed to reopen and offer services to those who can afford to not work toward the rebuild of the country. She'd didn't say all that, but that's what my brain told me. This guy could be sapped for cash and we could use it. There was only so much bartering a person could do with civilians before they needed to get real stuff from soldiers and arms dealers and such. So we trekked that way and got there on schedule; I was escorted to this penthouse suite and told to wait. Shit, I waited for close to an hour, about ready to leave when the mark himself walks in. _

_Now I recognize him immediately and these bells and whistles are starting to go off. Maybe we can afford to stay in this fancy shit hole, eat rich and shower with scalding hot water, and just maybe we could get all the things we needed to help more people. I'm selfish at times, but not that self-centered._

_**Who was he?**_

_Now if I told you that now, it would ruin the story. -__**She smiles-**_

_Well, he comes up to me and tells me he is glad that I could make it. He'd waited so long for someone who could help him out. I told him to not worry, that's what we were here for, my team and I, to help. He said, he only needed my help._

_That was it right there, I was sure I was going to have to shoot him for thinking I was some sort of government supplied prostitute. I've never had to do that and I wasn't going to start with him._

_So he motioned for me to follow him to the bedroom, I did sort of feeling things out and, of course, I was making sure I could grab my gun quickly. I think I was so intent on my piece that I failed to hear the noises, that moan, but when I went into that room it was evident - I freaked._

_**What was it?**_

_On the bed, there was a Zed, chained to the head board and writhing. Naked. It had no clothes on and was writing on the bed, moaning. I mean this one was fresh, no smell, no apparent wounds, fresh. I pulled my gun and went to shoot it when I heard the moaning behind me. I spun around and saw another one, chained to the wall behind me, straining against the chains trying to reach out for me. I almost squeezed off a shot before the bodyguard stood between me and the thing, stopping me. Yelling at me from behind and telling me not to be hasty, ha! I was freaking out on some really major level and this guy over me was telling me not to kill something I had been training to kill for months, years.__** -she takes a cigar out of her pocket and sticks it in her mouth while rooting through her pockets for a match-**_

_**So what was the job? Killing these undead?**_

_**-As she inhales she laughs, blowing out the smoke and laughing more clear - **__Yeah, no. He had bigger plans than getting his kicks from watching some chick put rounds in two dead heads._

_Well, -__**another drag of the cigar and sweet smoke-**__ the man in charge comes up behind me, after gently getting me to lower my firearm, and gets me to sit in this chair about ten feet from this chained up man on the wall. These two, fresh dead. He tells me calmly that he has asked me here to make sure nothing bad happens to him. I don't ask questions and he tells me to just make sure they don't bite him. That's all the instruction I get._

_So, I'm sitting there, gun in hand watching him as he begins taking off his clothes one by one, the whole time watching this Zed squirming on the bed against its chains. He's got all his clothes off and he just creeps toward this thing. It doesn't hit me until he's on top of it that he has intentions with it, not with me - the prostitute is the Zed not me, and I'm here to shoot it if it should start to get outta hand._

_-__**She's quiet for a moment, as if trying to figure how to approach the subject without letting the moment torture her and me. She puffs on the cigar and then continues.-**_

_He had sex with this thing and I was paid to watch. _

_There are some memories that no matter how much you get paid you don't ever forget. This was the one that haunts me. If you could just see this thing, the whole time trying to get at him, the whole time he is pumping into her, trying to eat him. -__**shivers-**__ Just as he came, well, he let his guard down. I could see that. If I'd not had my gun already in my hand I'm sure he'd have been bitten by it. I shot, quickly. I always was a great shot; right between the eyes. It didn't faze the pervert though. Rolled off the now dead undead and sort of stretched himself out. _

_**-A man comes in at this point. Large and muscle bound, he approaches and sits down next to her. She introduces him as her partner, Collin. He nods and she hands him her cigar. He puts it out.-**_

_His guard comes in and begins to unchain the one on the wall. I'm nervous, of course and I can't help but stand and sort of ready myself for him to just let him go, but he takes this Zed to this cross structure where he chains him again. Like Jesus fucking Christ and scary as shit. Bucking against these chains and moaning, shit, near screaming at him, and up comes the big guy again, naked and glaring at this G. Just assessing him. Then he hauls off and starts beating on him. Solid as brick punches in this dead head's stomach, over and over. I mean, laying into him. -__**she mimes a upper cut-**__ I stood there forever just watching him, and the whole time, once again, this thing was just trying to eat this mother fucker's face off. Five minutes in, this sucker punches a hole in the Zed's stomach, pulling out black and guts - smile on his face, and this G just keeps at these chains, pushing closer to this shit's face, and silently in my head I am hoping he will get him so I can put a bullet in his head and the crawling dead on the cross._

_**Did he?**_

_-__**she shakes her head sadly, laughing a little to herself**__- No. No such luck. After dumping this things guts all over the floor he pulls back and slams him in the nose, and I hear bones and moans and this -__**she makes a grossly wet smack with her teeth and lips-**__ ugh, I tell you that thing went limp as his bodyguard's dick, and that was that. He thanks me as he walks to his master bath and the body guard puts a bullet in the crucified G, and there I am standing there, gun still in my hand - shocked. That's the only word I can use to make sense of it; it happened so fast and none of it really made any sense at all._

_The guard grabs my elbow and walks me out giving me a card that he tells me has the full funds they explained they would pay me. Going to the elevator he tells me that those two Zed's, they were newlyweds found in the hotel, locked in their room._

_Now I know you're not supposed to sympathize for those things, seeing as though they aren't real anymore, not the real people they were but dead and gone, but that Shit fucking raped one Zed in front of its husband. Some sort of fucking symbolizum in that, right?_

_Later I get back to the ship, -__**she nudges Collin a little-**__ and he calls us up saying he sent over a little extra for my trouble and for doing such a great job. Says "Next time you're in town call me up, I'll hire you any day of the week." He laughs "Every day of the week." Sick bastard. _

_**How much did he pay you? For what you did that night?**_

_Little more than half a million dollars. For my discretion. _

_**Where you discrete?**_

_I'd thought of turning him in, figured that man was prone to fuck up some how and get infected if he wasn't already. My thinking was maybe he was infected and that lust to fuck and beat the Zeds was only inches away from him doing the same to the people in that hotel, thinking there safe. I talked to Collin here, told him and he and I thought over telling the govs. Someone else found out before I could though._

_**Was your client Art Matthews, the war profiteer?**_

_Told you it would ruin the story if I told you who it was. No one thought it was that bad, some still don't believe me. They found him hoarding some dead in a semi in the parking garage, cold storage and when he tried to get them to his room, he got bit and they took him down. No one really knew why he wanted them. I did. Man was sick in the head. There are more infections than the living dead, he was infected with sick, plain and simple - sick in the brain._

_Take out the brain, man goes down.___


End file.
